People get excited about "cam lobe wear" of the camshaft, BUT if you put a dial indicator on the distributor breaker cam lobes, to set the point gap, you'll most probably discover that they are not all the same height. Meaning that each cyl will not have the plug fire at the exact same time as the other cyls will fire.
Until somebody starts to make NEW breaker cams (they are easily removed), the "easy way out" is a quality electronic system.
By the later 1980s, new point sets did not have the little vial of lube in them as they used to. MANY people did not know they were not getting what they needed to get with the new point sets! Result, their new points only lasted about 4000 miles, when we used to get 15K miles on them in prior times. Only real change? Everybody knew they had to wipe the grease on the breaker point cam, which then was wiped-off and held by the rubbing block's back side.
In THOSE same times, the original Chrysler Direct Connection/Mopar Perf electronic ignition conversion kit was around and of real OEM quality parts. As they were completely plug-n-play, easy to install, AND were a very good value. One modification that was that was readily-accepted by the Mopar family, too. They were everywhere and nobody worried about them NOT being of COMPLETE OEM Chrysler quality.
In more recent times, Chrysler has licensed the production of those kits. Some claim they are not the same, but as they are licensed, they must meet OEM levels of testing and performance. Another discussion for another place.
In more recent times, too, apparently there are some knock-off control boxes for the Chrysler elec system. Some of lesser quality and design. Several YT vids on those. MSD used to make a control box with a Chrysler system, the "5C", as a basic OEM upgrade unit. Neat, from the days of MSD being the original company with usually great durability.
In ANY electronic system, the distributor shaft bushings will almost never wear, by observation. Why? No sideloads put on the bushings from the breaker point rubbing block. Even well past 500K miles, from my own experience. Notice that all distributor rotors are balanced, even on point systems.
ANYTHING with electronics can fail, at some point in time. But that point in time is usually greatly elevated with good quality components, with genuine OEM being the best.
As noted, the newer condensers DO have issues, so finding older ones can be important.
ONE point I noticed, back then, was that OEM coils could go up to 30KV, rather than 20KV. As the GM HEI coils were 50KV. Small point. I have run .045" plug gaps on my point-system Chryslers with no problems. When the '66 Newport Town Sedan 383 2bbl was my daily driver, I spent an afternoon getting the spark plug J-gapped and then gapped precisely all the same at .035" gaps. On the Sunn oscilloscope at the local Chrysler dealership, the plug firing traces were all 8-9KV at idle. We never tested past that or put the engine under load. No misses, no real need to test that far. Note that an ignition coil will only produce enough voltage to fire the plug, anytime. It will not produce max voltage with every spark if it does not have to. Which makes a 50KV output aftermarket coil "a show piece" alluding to great power at WOT, when the engine only spends a great fraction of its running time at WOT.
Uncle Tony's context is accurate and reality in more cases than not. We've been oriented toward "factory stuff is bad" (due to cost-cutting and such) and aftermarket is better (in some cases), but "$$$ engineering" happens at BOTH levels of things. The OEM level has to cover almost anything an owner can throw at their car, no matter what. The aftermarket HP market items are more targeted to higher-perf applications, whether they are as robust as the OEMs or not, in reality.
The Ford DuraSpark modules were mounted away from engine heat, as Chrysler modules have always been, and "wire" pretty much the same as the GM HEI Modules. In another forum, a poster was using one on his GM points ignition system. Sourced from a salvage yard (with wiring) for about $10.00.
Dead Dog Garage also has a YT vid on how to wire-in a GM HEI module, in a very "basic" manner.
It HAS been documented that the spark output of a GM HEI module drops off a good bit past 4500rpm, which kind of alludes to "poor top rpm performance", BUT even with that lower output, it has the guts to get to 6000rpm with no misfires, in normal OEM uses, from my few experiences with such.
Sorry for the length. Just my experiences and observations from the later 1960s.
CBODY67
